Almost 20 years ago the Lawn Tennis Tournament Club (LTTC) Rot-Weiss Berlin and seven other European tennis clubs with a tradition of one hundred years founded the CTC Association. The very first CTC Tournament of Seniors took place on these courts in Berlin in 1997. Now, in July 2014, Rot-Weiss organized their first Junior Competition U16 with participants from the CTC community.
In the tennis world Rot-Weiss Berlin is well known for many tournaments. For thirty years we had hosted the International Ladies German Open with the top tennis players. Steffi Graf won the tournament nine times. Later Rot-Weiss organized the International German Juniors, a tier 1 tournament with juniors from all over the world. It has just taken place in July this year. And a week later Rot-Weiss hosted the 1st Berlin CTC Cup 2014, a tennis event for CTC teams from Barcelona and Dublin.
The guest teams represented Real Club de Tenis Barcelona – 1899, Real Club de Polo de Barcelona, and Carrickmines Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club from Ireland. The five juniors and one or two accompaniments of each team arrived at the two airports of Berlin on Friday throughout the day and were picked up by club members. The Friday program covered some training in the club and sightseeing to get first impressions of Berlin. Some of the juniors stayed with families others in a hostel not too far from the club.
The tournament games themselves were held on Saturday and Sunday. When the players were not on the courts, they watched other matches or socialized with members of other teams. LTTC Rot-Weiss placed an emphasis on having meals as a whole group so that the young athletes of the four teams got the chance to exchange experiences with others. Lunch and dinner were eaten at one long table with close to 25 people sitting around it.
The Berliners were capable of using the home terrain as an advantage and won the Cup with three wins and no loss. After an intense match for second place on Sunday, Carrickmines was able to secure it against the two teams from Barcelona. RCTB came in third, the Barcelona Polo Club played very good tennis but , unfortunately, came in fourth. All in all, the members of LTTC Rot-Weiss saw very good tennis and obviously all players and coaches enjoyed the international experience and the atmosphere of the competition. After returning home the teams made clear that they did not regret coming to Berlin. Realizing that this was an under 16 event, one can be confident that this was not the last international championship for some of the athletes.
Gunnar Streidt
CTC Representative of LTTC Rot-Weiss Berlin
